Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 32:24

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." — Genesis 32:24 (ASV)

There wrestled. — This verb, abak, occurs only here, and undoubtedly it was chosen because of its resemblance to the name Jabbok. Its probable derivation is from a word signifying dust, because wrestlers were quickly involved in a cloud of dust, or because, as was the custom in Greece, they rubbed their bodies with it.

A man. — Such he seemed to be to Jacob; but Hosea (Hosea 12:4) calls him an angel; and, in Genesis 32:30, Jacob recognizes in him a manifestation of the Deity, as Hagar had done before, when an angel appeared to her (Genesis 16:13). There is no warrant for regarding the angel as an incarnation of Deity, any more than in the case of Manoah (Judges 13:22). Instead, it was a manifestation of God mediately by His messenger, and was one of the many signs indicative of a more complete manifestation by the coming of the Word in the flesh.

The opposite idea of many modern commentators, that the narrative is an allegory, is contradicted by the attendant circumstances. This is especially true given the change of Jacob’s name and his subsequent lameness, to which national testimony was borne by the customs of the Jews.